Home Is Where The Scars Are
by shippershape
Summary: Written for a gunrunner Bellamy prompt. Clarke runs a free clinic in her hometown, a town she thought she'd escaped until her father's death drew her back in. She came back to take care of her mother, and found the town had fallen even deeper into anarchy at the hands of Dante, the head of the biggest gangs in town. One night she gets a knock on her door and finds a bleeding Bellam


"Who's that?" Clarke glanced out the window, following her patient's gaze. She sighed when she spotted a familiar mop of black hair.

"That's Bellamy Blake." She answered, turning back to the task at hand. She snipped the excess thread hanging out of Nadia's stitches, and gently pressed a bandage over the wound. "Forget it." She sighed, shaking her head when Nadia continued to ogle Bellamy through the window. "He's one of Dante's boys." Nadia swiveled to look at Clarke, mouth turned down.

"That's a shame." She said softly. The conversation quickly turned to other things; the dog that had bitten her, the neighbour that refused to muzzle it, Nadia's hesitance to have the dog put down. They didn't talk about Dante in Willingdon, not for long anyways. Dante Wallace was a kingpin, he owned half the town and the other half was too scared to do anything about the fact that he was running guns through his sugar refinery. He had a few crews, mostly young kids he recruited straight out of high school, and they did all the dirty work. Even if the local police wanted to take him down, they'd have a hard time tracing anything back to him. It was perfect for him, misery for the town.

Handing Nadia a fistful of bandages and antiseptic, Clarke walked her back out to the waiting room. The small clinic had been something she'd worked her whole life for. She had always wanted to help people, to provide medical help where it was needed and often out of reach. She had never planned for it to be here, though. Ever since she was a kid she'd ached to get out of Willingdon, to any place else. Between Dante's hold on the town, and her mother's hold on her, Clarke couldn't move away fast enough. But life had happened, and after her father had been killed she'd known she couldn't leave. Her mother needed her. The town, she'd realized the first day her clinic had opened its doors, needed her too. So she'd stayed, worked in her clinic and tried to block out the fact that kids were being stolen to serve as soldiers in a war where the only thing that could be won was money.

Kids died all the time, drug overdoses, disputes with other crews, with other affiliations. Turned out gun running is a competitive business. Bellamy, the man Nadia had been all but drooling over had always been a family man, fiercely protective of his mother and sister. But, like Clarke, he'd lost a parent, in his case his only parent, and it had hit the siblings hard. Octavia had gone off the rails, or so Clarke had heard, and Bellamy had ended up in bed with Dante. They'd been strangers, Clarke and Bellamy, but she'd respected what he'd stood for. Now he was just another face in Dante's army.

Later, she collapsed on her couch at home, feet aching from the 12 hour day. Harper, the girl she'd hired to juggle the administrative/human resources side of the clinic had turned up around ten to force Clarke out the door. It was exhausting work, and she would be the first to admit she was married to it, but she felt like she was making a difference, making a dent in the damage that had been done to this town. She stood up to grab a bottle of wine, sighing when her doorbell rang.

"If that's you, Maggie, I'm not painting the fence." Clarke shouted, as she made her way to answer it. "It looks fine and I don't have the t-" She stopped as she swung the door open, mouth falling open in surprise. Bellamy Blake stood on her door, his usual smirk replaced with a grimace. From the way he was hunched over she could tell he was in pain.

"Hi." He flashed her a weak impersonation of his famous dimpled grin, and she was pulled out of her shock.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, hiding her nerves with an icy stare. She had never been afraid of Bellamy, but she knew what he stood for now, and it was enough to have her reaching out for the rifle she kept under her foyer table.

"My name's Bellamy, I-"

"I know who you are." She cut him off. He blinked at her, clearly wondering if that was a good thing for him or not.

"I need your help." He said bluntly, pulling his hand from where it had been hidden under his jacket. Instinctively, Clarke grabbed the rifle, and it was pointed in his face before he had a chance to move.

"Shit." His eyes widened, and he took a step back. "I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to show you something." He waited, and Clarke bit her lip. Without lowering the gun, she nodded.

"Alright." His hand emerged from where it had been clutching his stomach inside the jacket, and Clarke sighed when she saw it was covered in blood. Bellamy shrugged off the jacket with a wince, and she could see that his entire shirt was drenched, what was unmistakably a bullet hole just above his hip. She lowered the gun. "Okay, come in. I don't need word getting out that I'm stitching up Dante's errand boys at home." She stepped aside and he staggered through the doorway, glancing around the entryway curiously.

"The place looks different." He mused, voice rough as he followed her into the kitchen.

"Different from when?" She asked, rifling through her medical kit for supplies.

"I lived here for a little while. When you were gone, I guess." She looked up, surprised he would even have known she left. Surprised he knew who she was. Pieces started to fall into place.

"You lived here with Octavia." She said. He looked away. Clarke knew that his sister used to be a social entity in the town, charming everyone she met, beloved. Their mother had died after Clarke had left, and apparently they hadn't stayed in the old house. She thought back to how painful it was walking in the door every day after her dad died, seeing him for just a moment before reality hit and she realized it was just her imagination. She could understand wanting to move. She'd sold their house and bought a condo for her mother and a townhouse for herself. Apparently Bellamy's old townhouse.

Having found everything she needed, Clarke pushed Bellamy onto a chair beside the kitchen table, pulling out one for herself facing him.

"Take off your shirt." She commanded. He raised an eyebrow at her. "If you want me to clean that up I'm going to have to be able to see it." She said, exasperated already. There was something about him, something about the fact that he wasted all his potential to join a gang when his sister needed him that rubbed her the wrong way. She didn't like him. He obeyed though, pulling his shirt over his head with a short yelp of pain.

"You know," He muttered, panting. "If you wanted to get me naked, you just had to ask." Despite the blood Clarke could appreciate his muscled shoulders, abs that would be perfect for a bowflex commercial. He was hot, she acknowledged. She still hated him.

"I did ask." She reminded him, dousing his wound with alcohol and a little bit of glee. He hissed out a breath, knuckles turning white as he gripped the chair. "Get on the table." Clarke said, nodding at the kitchen table. He stared at her. "Bellamy, you could easily have internal bleeding, we don't have time for this." He eyed her again, but climbed obediently onto the table, laying on his back. Clarke handed him a wad of gauze. "Press that on it for a couple minutes." He took it, doing as she said with another grimace.

"I wouldn't have come here," He said, turning his head to watch as she threw away the wrappers for the gauze. "But if I'd gone to the hospital…"

"They would have called the police because it's a bullet wound." Clarke sighed tiredly. "I know. I'm surprised you even know who I am, let alone where I live." Willingdon wasn't a small town, and she wasn't the only doctor. There was a proper doctor's office and one or two other clinics. Clarke wouldn't have described herself as anonymous, but she wasn't well known either. Bellamy looked surprised.

"We went to school together. I graduated a few years above you, but I knew who you were." He shrugged, then winced. Clarke grabbed a bottle of pills from her kit, shaking out two and sliding them towards him.

"Take those, they'll help with the pain." She poured him a glass of water, then sat back down beside him. Gently, she pushed his hand away from the gauze, and lifted the corner of it off of his wound. A fresh trickle of blood appeared, running down his already blood streaked chest. She frowned. "It looks like the bullet went all the way through, that's good. I need to make sure you're not bleeding internally, this isn't going to be fun for you." Slipping on a pair of gloves, she grabbed the floor lamp from the corner and aimed it at his abdomen, then used her fingers to feel for any bullet fragments inside the bullet hole. He groaned. Clarke let out a harsh breath when she felt a jagged piece of metal against her finger.

"What?" He asked, trying, and failing, to turn his head and look at her. Shaking her head, Clarke fought the urge to flick him upside the head.

"There's some shrapnel in here, that's really not good. I can't leave it, so I'll have to take it out.." She wondered how he had kept so quiet, feeling the jagged edges of the bullet shard she knew it must be excruciating every time he moved.

"Oh." Was all he said. Clarke rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to have to cut it out." She told him. Silence. "It's going to hurt, a lot." Bellamy just nodded. "Okay, then." She got to work, head down, scalpel slicing around the bullet. She couldn't knock Bellamy out, didn't have the drugs she needed, and she was surprised to find she wasn't enjoying how much this was hurting him.

"You're not going to ask?" He bit out, voice strained. Clarke made another incision and he moaned.

"Ask what?"

"How this happened." Clarke shook her head before realizing he couldn't see her.

"No." She murmured. She could guess, though. "I'm going to pull the bullet out now," She unbuckled her belt, sliding it out of her jeans. She handed it to him, face grim. "You're going to want to bite down on that. Try not to wake up my neighbours." For the first time, he looked wary, but he took the belt, laying back down and resuming his grip on the table top. Gritting her teeth, Clarke clamped her tongs onto the piece of metal, and pulled. It slid about halfway out before catching. Bellamy let out a muffled howl of agony, body tense.

"Shit." Clarke muttered. She had been hoping only one end of the piece would be rough, but it seemed there was a sharp edge stuck somewhere. "Sorry. I'm going to have to use my fingers." Bellamy didn't speak, Clarke wasn't really sure he could, and she put the tongs down on the table. Carefully, she slid her finger inside the incision and found the rough point digging into the muscle tissue. "Mmm okay, almost there." In one swift motion she slid her finger under the jagged piece and pulled it out. Dropping it, Clarke watched as it fell onto the floor with a metallic ping, and she suddenly felt Bellamy go slack under her fingers. "Woah, okay." Glad he'd been laying down, Clarke pulled the belt from his mouth and frowned. He really couldn't stay there.

He came to a couple minutes later, blinking in confusion when he saw that Clarke had moved him to the couch. His back was wedged up against the arm of the sofa so she could work on stitching up his wound without having to hold him upright. The little gasp of pain told Clarke he was awake.

"Welcome back." She said, nearly finished with the sutures. She tied them off, taping a bandage in place on top. She suddenly had a flashback to earlier that day, when she'd done the same thing in very different circumstances.

"That feels like shit." Bellamy muttered. Clarke shrugged.

"Well, that's what getting shot feels like." She told him, without sympathy.

"How would you know?" He grumbled, his voice a little slurred from the very strong painkillers she'd given him earlier.

"I know." Was her answer. It was true. During her residency in Chicago she'd spent a lot of her time in rough neighborhoods in a mobile free clinic, and she'd been shot twice. Once in the arm, once in the stomach. She had experienced the great pleasure of pulling a bullet out of her own arm and stitching it up with her left hand. She was right handed. She moved, kneeling on the couch in front of him. Grabbing a roll of gauze she wound it around his waist, securing the bandage in place. She reached for the bottle of alcohol and a couple rags, starting to clean off the blood around his wound. Deciding there was no point in leaving the rest of his torso stained crimson, she continued well past the bandage and soon he was almost completely blood free. Bellamy had watched her tiredly, his eyes changing the lower she drifted on his body. When she'd reached the thin trail of hair that disappeared into his jeans, he'd grabbed her hand.

"This isn't a peep show, princess." He'd said. Clarke just rolled her eyes, dabbing at the last bit of blood there, then throwing the rag into the bucket she'd brought over.

"Don't flatter yourself." She stood up scrubbing her hands over her face in exhaustion. It had already been a long day when she got home, now it was well past midnight and she wasn't sure she would last much longer without falling asleep on her feet. "Okay." She gestured at Bellamy's now dressed and treated injury. "You're done." He gave her a smile, better than the one she'd gotten on the way in, and got painfully to his feet.

"Thanks, doc."

"I have a name." Clarke muttered, cleaning up the last of the mess they'd left behind. She wanted Bellamy gone so she could fall into bed and sleep for twelve hours. Tomorrow was Sunday, the one day a week she didn't work at the clinic, and she had never been so glad that Harper had insisted she couldn't work seven days a week. As she watched him limp toward the door, Clarke sighed. There was no way she could let him go. An injury like that took weeks to heal, it would be at least a week before he could so much as take off his own shoes. He would never make it home.

"Well, I'll see you around." He reached for the door.

"Wait." Clarke cursed herself internally, what did she care if he was hurting, if he couldn't take care of himself. He had gotten himself into this life, and it was not one she agreed with. But for some reason she cared, she did, and once upon a time she'd taken an oath. "You should probably stay here. You're not going to make it walking, and you definitely shouldn't be driving." She bit her lip. "Besides, I'm guessing there's someone out there looking for you." He didn't address that, but narrowed his eyes at her.

"Why would you let me stay here? You don't even like me. You've already done more than enough." His voice wasn't accusatory so much as it was disbelieving. He wasn't used to being looked after.

"Because odds are if I let you leave you'll die, and after all the work I just put into saving your ass it seems like a waste." It was a lie but it was all she could manage. There was something else though, something almost possessive and she couldn't put her finger on it. "You can sleep on the couch." He hesitated, hovering in the doorway, then headed back for the couch, something strongly resembling relief on his face. He slumped back onto it, squirming. He wouldn't find a comfortable position tonight, that Clarke knew from experience. She headed to the hall closet and grabbed a couple blankets and some extra pillows, he would need them. Then she found one of her dad's old t-shirts, only pausing for a moment before adding it to the pile. When she re-emerged in the living room Bellamy was already asleep. Sighing, she slid the pillows under his head and back, and draped the blanket over him. She left the t-shirt on the table next to him. As she turned out the light and headed for the shower, she couldn't help but think that if someone had told her this morning that she'd be playing house with Bellamy Blake she would have laughed in their face. Now he was asleep on her couch.

She fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, her last thought a prayer that whoever had been after Bellamy in the first place didn't follow him here.

The next morning she woke up with the feeling that something was different. It wasn't until she nearly had a heart attack upon seeing Bellamy on the couch that she remembered. At some point during the night he had put on her dad's shirt, and seeing it poking out under the blanket made her heart ache a little. She started a pot of coffee, then went to wake him up. It was almost eleven, and she wanted to check to see if the stitches had held up. Crouching next to him, she reached out, hand on his shoulder. She shook him gently, a gasp of surprise escaping when his hand shot out, gripping her wrist so tightly it hurt.

"Bellamy." She tried to pull her arm away but his hand was strong, and she could feel the tips of her fingers going numb. "Bellamy, wake up."

His eyelids fluttered, but he didn't move. His reflexes were unnervingly fast, especially considering the fact that he still seemed to be asleep.

"Bellamy, you're hurting me." Clarke said, a little louder, and his eyes flew open. They were wild for a moment, flitting around his surroundings as he tried to fill in the blanks. Then his gaze dropped to where his hand was circling her wrist and his grip relaxed, his hand jerking away as if he'd been burned.

"Sorry." His voice was rough with sleep and exhaustion, and the dark circles under his eyes rivalled her own. He was still staring at her wrist, the red ring around it a sign of the bruise that was almost certainly on its way. Feeling awkward, she shook her sleeve down to cover it.

"I want to check on your stitches. It was dark last night, and I need to make sure it's not getting infected." Looking a little more awake, Bellamy nodded. He sat up and Clarke settled on the couch beside him, lifting his shirt. She saw the dark stain where he had bled through the gauze, and her father's shirt, and she couldn't stop her lips from tugging downward into a sad line. He noticed, his expression changing to match hers.

"What's wrong?" Clarke shook her head, carefully lifting the medical tape and peeling the gauze away.

"Nothing." Bellamy continued to stare at her.

"Am I dying?" He wondered aloud, and Clarke realized how it looked to him, her somber expression as she inspected his injury. She laughed, the sound seeming to startle him.

"No, not that I can tell. There's no sign of infection and the stitches are holding. It looks pretty good, actually." She said, admiring her handiwork. He noticed that too.

"It's good to see the rumor about doctors having big egos is a myth." He muttered sarcastically, wincing as she replaced the gauze and pressed it on with a little more force than was necessary. "So what's the problem?" Clarke sighed, letting his shirt drop back down to cover the bandage, staring sadly at the offending red spot.

"It's nothing, just a stain. I was hoping you wouldn't bleed through your bandages that's all." Bellamy looked thoughtfully down at the stain, a lightbulb going off somewhere in his head.

"Oh. This your boyfriends shirt?" For some reason he seemed to find the idea of that amusing. Clarke sighed. She stood, making her way to the kitchen to pour a cup of that coffee.

"No. It was my dad's." She mumbled it over her shoulder, not sure he had even heard her. She grabbed a mug for Bellamy as well, and set both on the coffee table. When she looked up, there was something she had never expected to see on his face. Pity. It made her want to pour the coffee over his head. "Don't." He blinked.

"Don't what?"

"Don't feel sorry for me." The words were acidic as they slid off her tongue and she wasn't sure why. Bellamy, of all people, could understand loss. But Bellamy Blake feeling sorry for her was a low she couldn't, and wouldn't, sink to. He opened his mouth to respond, then seemed to think better of it.

"Okay. Is that for me?" He pointed to the coffee, and Clarke nodded. The tension fizzed out and she leaned back against the couch, sipping her coffee quietly. She had no idea what to do with Bellamy, he couldn't stay here forever, and even once his wound was healed he would have to face whoever was waiting for him outside. She wasn't sure why that worried her, and she was starting to resent being dragged into the whole mess. Deciding getting dressed would be a good first step in figuring out her next move, she got up.

"I'm going to get dressed and…" She trailed off. She didn't know else yet. She was considering going to the pub and drinking until she forgot that Bellamy was bleeding on her couch but it was 11:30 on a Sunday morning and that was a little too Housewives even for her.

"Try to figure out what to do with me?" Bellamy finished her thought. She sighed.

"Well, yeah."

"Are you worried that someone followed me here?" He asked bluntly. She stilled, surprised.

"I-yes. A little."

He nodded.

"Look, you've done a lot for me, and you don't even know me. I'm pretty sure you don't like me." He paused, as though waiting for her to deny it. She didn't. "And I really wouldn't ask you this if I didn't have to but-"

"You want to hide here." It was her turn to cut him off. She'd seen this coming, but hoped it wouldn't anyway. "Okay." Her mouth moved of its own volition, and if he looked surprised at how quickly she'd agreed it didn't even compare to her own surprise. She really shouldn't let him stay. He was a criminal, and a liability, not to mention the fact that someone was obviously out to get him. She hated Dante, hated everything Bellamy was involved in, and to top it off, he was right. She didn't like him. He was arrogant, and rude, and attractive enough to be distracting. He was pretty much the worst choice for a roommate that there was in Willingdon, Dante himself aside. She groaned, but didn't take it back. "Yeah, alright. For a little while. I have to keep an eye on your incision anyways. But there will be rules." She said, holding a finger in the air. In the movies it always seemed to give people an air of authority, but she just felt stupid.

"Alright." Bellamy said slowly, still looking confused at her hospitality. He waited for her to start listing rules, but she was having a hard time thinking of any.

"I'll get back to you on those rules." She muttered, letting her finger drop. "And some other stuff."

"Other stuff?"

"You need clothes and don't you? And no offense, but I'm not going to your apartment to get them. And you can't go back there either, not right now." He frowned at her, like he hadn't thought of any of this. She wasn't surprised. "I guess that's rule number one. You can't leave. If anyone sees you and figures out that you're staying here that puts both of us in danger." Clarke had lived in this town long enough to know how it works. If Bellamy had been shot it was by someone else who worked for Dante. And that meant that either one of his boys had gone rogue, or Bellamy's head was on the chopping block and he was no longer safe in this town. Judging by the fact that he'd asked to hide out here it was probably the latter.

"Okay, I'll stay inside. I've got some clothes and stuff stashed in a locker at the train station." He offered. Clarke raised an eyebrow. "I have no illusions about my life, Clarke. Something like this… it was always going to happen." She almost asked him why, why he would ever have gotten into this life in the first place if he knew that this was what it looked like. But she didn't. She didn't want to know him. She'd dated a guy, before she left, someone she met through her volunteer work with the homeless. His name was Finn, and he was all long brown hair and puppy dog eyes and she had fallen hard just like the 19 year old moron she was. They'd stayed in touch when she left, kept a kind of open long-distance relationship going. When she got back she realized that some time in her absence he'd prospected Lucifers Army, Dante's gang. They called themselves Lucs. She'd dumped him, and three months later they found his body in a gutter just outside town. So Clarke had no desire to get to know Bellamy, to care, and to put herself through that kind of pain when it was his body that turned up. She'd lost enough men in her life.

Her father had been killed when he tried to expose Dante's ties with the police force. Jake Griffin had been well respected among the city council, but he had been firmly tied to his morals in a way the others were not, and it was that morality that had prompted his assassination. Looking at Bellamy wearing his shirt, Bellamy who, for all she knew, was the one who had fired that shot, it hurt her. But there was something about him that made her feel inexplicably safe. She looked at him and she didn't for a second feel threatened, there was no nerve in the back of her neck that worried he would hurt her. She remembered the way he'd looked at her wrist when he woke up, as though her pain was tangible to him. Like he was physically repulsed by it. Her gut was rarely wrong, and it was telling her he wasn't the guy she'd thought he was. She broke out of her thoughts and nodded.

"Okay. I'm guessing you have the key for that on you." She held out her hand, and he pointed to the jacket that had been discarded on the floor in the chaos of the night before. She shoved her hand in the pocket, and closed her eyes in anger when her fingers curled around something that was cold, hard, and definitely not a set of keys. She pulled the pistol out gingerly, checking that the safety was on and setting it on the table without a word. Continuing her search, she found the keys and straightened up. Bellamy was glancing between her and the gun, looking wary.

"Clarke-"

"Just don't." This life, his life, every part of it was being thrust in her face and all it did was bring back bad memories. For now, Clarke needed to get away from him. "I need some air. I'll get your clothes." With that, she practically ran down the hallway, latching her door before allowing her breath to catch. She stood like that, back pressed to the door and one hand pressed to her mouth, for a moment or two. Then she shook her head, trying to reign in the tremors that had started in her hands.

"Pull it together." She told herself sternly. Slowly, her breathing evened out, and she pulled on a pair of jeans and an old concert t-shirt. She grabbed both sets of keys, hers and Bellamy's, and walked out the front door without looking at him. She heard him calling her name, but she pulled the door shut behind her. As she pulled out of the driveway, Clarke wondered what it meant that a part of her, albeit a small one, hoped that he wasn't there when she got back.


End file.
